The House will vote on legislation as early as Tuesday that would require the federal government to terminate workers with "seriously delinquent" tax debts.

The bill, which also would prohibit the government from hiring people who are late on their tax payments, tries to deal with the roughly 100,000 federal workers who are usually behind on their taxes each year.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the bills sponsor, has cited IRS data indicating that these workers owed a combined $1 billion in delinquent taxes in 2009, up from roughly $600 million in 2004.

Even with the increased amount, the number of federal employees who are late in their tax payments has remained steady, at about 100,000 each year.

"Federal employees, contractors and grantees have an obvious obligation to pay their taxes," Chaffetz said when he introduced his bill in 2011. "Because they draw their compensation and funds from the American taxpayers, they owe it to the taxpayers themselves to be compliant. Those that do not should be fired or lose funding."

The vote on the measure, H.R. 828, comes after Republicans and Democrats, especially those from the Washington, D.C.-area, have sparred for months over proposals dealing with the federal workforce.

Top Democrats like House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) voted against this years payroll tax cut extension, a top White House priority, because future government employees would help foot the bill.

Republicans have unfairly targeted federal employees throughout this Congress, Mariel Saez, a Hoyer spokeswoman, told The Hill in a Monday statement. Rep. Hoyer believes House Republicans are engaged in reckless and unconstructive political theater when they target federal employees with bills like this one.

Republicans have looked to the federal workforce for savings to help undo the automatic spending cuts set to begin next year.

Chaffetzs bill would open up all federal workers to be fired for not paying their income taxes, although it would require the Office of Personnel Management to put in place procedures ensuring due process.

The government would be required to give workers 180 days to show their debt is being paid off. Under current law, only IRS employees can be fired for income tax delinquency.

Chaffetz also pushed to exempt active service members from the measure, and the GOP accepted a Democratic proposal to ensure that the bill wouldnt impede revenue collection.

House Republicans are considering the bill under a suspension of rules, which means a two-thirds majority will be required to pass it. Republicans can be expected to support it, so roughly 40 to 50 Democrats will be needed for passage.

The House Oversight Committee cleared the measure by voice vote last year, a sign of at least some Democratic support.

But unions representing federal workers and Democrats like Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the ranking member of the House Oversight panel, argue only a sliver of federal workers arent compliant on their taxes.

We find this measure redundant, since there are sufficient remedies already in place, including wage garnishment, to deal with those who fall behind in their tax obligations, but are capable of repayment, Colleen Kelley, the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, told The Hill in a statement.

The real problem is the FedGov's unwillingness to fire bad employees for any reason, most of which have nothing to do with tax delinquency.

And there are sufficient loopholes in this bill (which amends the existing tax code) to make actually firing someone a long and tedious process.

And that's the crux of the problem. There is so much red tape that a manager needs to go through (not the least of which is EEO), that they are incentivized to simply put the bad employee in a corner and let them play computer games all day rather than trying to get rid of them.

8
posted on 07/31/2012 3:29:41 AM PDT
by Fresh Wind
('People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.' Richard M. Nixon)

Dirty Harry loves stuff like this.He'll kill it in the Senate and then the Rats will send out a campaign letter to government paycheck recipient unions saying that the evil fascists are trying to break them.

This bill targets only federal employees ~ and the statistic says 100,000 of them show up late with their taxes on a yearly basis (which doesn't mean every one of them is late every year, just that there are that many who are late in a given year).

Most of the cause for this lateness has to do with interactions with family courts regarding child support ~ as well as the correct identification of who owed it.

As everyone on FR knows, inasmuch as we are all the world's greatest experts on the federal income tax, child support is taxable at the custodial parent, and is a deduction to the non-custodial parent.

People regularly end up late as state and local courts shilly shally around delaying and deferring final decisions on custody.

The solution is simple ~ apply this to everybody. If your local court can't get custody decided within the framework of a tax year then imprison the judge, fire both the mom and the dad, and seize any property they might have left.

BTW, that's going to go after "the young" ~ but I suspect it would wake everybody up to the fundamental problem here.

Good example. And yes, the solution is simple: massively simplify the tax code to make filing easy. I'm sure the delinquent federal employees are all over the lot in the 1001 bad reasons one can get crosswise with the IRS. Some of them are probably bad apples. But I'd guess the majority of them simply have some infernal nuisance of a complication that they delayed dealing with, and suddenly the clock ticks and they're late.

These situations can arise in any number of ways; you mention family court situations, but federal employees also may have outside income, small businesses on the side, spousal income and spousal/childrens' tax complications, inherited property, trusts and estates and probate, and a thousand and one other petty complications of the kind that make the U.S. tax code one of the wonders of the world.

Personally, I've only been a late filer once (not counting fairly routine extensions) when a paperwork collection exercise took longer than I had anticipated (admittedly after having procrastinated badly). Since I had filed my estimated taxes on time and called the IRS to explain the delay once it became clear I was going to be late, it was not difficult to work out. But as I get older, I find that the nuisance factor looms ever larger, and my contempt for the system grows apace. I know I have to do it, but I no longer regard the system as deserving of respect and I'm not eager to hang anyone who has simply run afoul of the IRS on a technicality.

A first check is whether the delinquent taxpayer filed his estimated taxes on time. If he's done that but is late on the final, I would give him the benefit of the doubt if he's dealing with some imbecile paperwork issue and just put it off too long.

None of that is to excuse the truly bad actors who just don't bother to file, or who underpay and don't ante up when they're audited. The feds will have a few of those as well, and they should be fired.

just sayin'

A study was done several years back concerning the biggest reason why a federal employee can end up in arears on tax payments ~ it's not because of overwithholding ~ and remember you have the gub'mnt on the other end paying them something so "THEY KNOW".

The really big one involved CHILD CUSTODY ~ and the derivatives of that ~ and most of the cause of that was laziness in the state and local court systems.

Then, there are the outside income tricks, and those affect mostly government lawyers and accountants!

Firing people because IRS doesn't know how to enforce the federal tax code seems counter productive to me. Bet some of the agents who've dealt with these employees won't like it either ~ 'cause it puts a BIG RED BULLSEYE' on 'em.

Most folks will try to pay ~ and then there are those who suffer from clinical depression, or, like Br'r Holmes, something far worse.

Bet he forgot to pay his taxes the last couple of years!

Think about it ~ he had a government grant ~ he had to account for it on his tax return even if it wasn't taxable. So, he makes a mistake, a deficiency is recorded and an agent is sent over to his booby trapped apartment to "talk to him". Yeah, right ~ bet that happens about one time.

Not really ~ they're mostly low to middle income federal employees who have a child custody problem ~ or are involved in an eldercare situation. Sometimes there's an inheritance and delay in probate (by a state court) can really screw you up ~ IRS will tell you the money was owed LAST YEAR, not THIS YEAR, so you owe interest and penalties.

The Treasury Department has a special center in Covington Kentucky that cuts deals with taxpayers who are late or delinquent. It's a HUGE CENTER. They send IRS tax reminders (like a bill but tackier) to millions of people every year.

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.